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Psalm 127

“Unless the Lord builds the house,
they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1, NASB).
Using a familiar tune, this hymn expresses
the comfort and rest of
complete dependence on God.
It is part of the Psalms of Ascents series on Psalms 120 – 134.
To download a pdf of the entire “Psalms of Ascents” series,
complete with companion devotional readings,
click here.

Recording
Printed Music

Only in You, eternal All-in-all,
Only in You our efforts stand or fall.
All that we do, the simple and the grand,
Withers or blossoms in Your sovereign hand.

Worry and struggle, sleeplessness and strain –
Outside of You our work is all in vain.
All our ambitions, all that we pursue,
Can’t match the fruitfulness of life in You.

You are the Giver, You Yourself the prize.
You are the wealth that fully satisfies.
Fullness of joy, our source and rich reward,
How all our being longs for You, our Lord!

by Ken Bible, © 2019 LNWhymns.com.

Fresh Views of Timeless Truths

For the next two weeks, reflect on The Allness of God with this free pdf download. God is the Source, Sustainer, and Goal of all that is – every place, every time, every person, every circumstance. The Allness of God will help you weave that glorious truth into your heart, mind, and life.

It is part of a brand-new series, Fresh Views of Timeless Truth. Each volume provides readings, prayers, scripture, and recorded hymns on a focused topic.

Links:
Free pdf of The Allness of God
Complete list of available volumes in Fresh Views of Timeless Truths

A Detail to Ponder

Here’s an intriguing detail I came across this morning in Genesis 18:14.

God had sent three angels to tell Abraham that, at long last, Sarah would bear him a son within a year. Sarah was listening at the tent door and laughed at the news. She couldn’t believe that she would have such “pleasure,” since both she and Abraham were past 90. In v.14, God (apparently through the angel) answered her,

“Is there anything too difficult for the LORD?” (NASB; NIV, “too hard”).

But another translation, and perhaps a more literal one, is

“Is there anything too wonderful for Yahweh?”

That translation makes my heart smile. It brings to mind a flood of marvelous blessings the Lord has poured out over the years. Truly, is there anything too wonderful for our God?

FREE BOOK: A Deeper Christmas

I am beginning to make my unpublished books available as free downloads in pdf format. The first one is available now:

A Deeper Christmas
Thought-provoking reflections, prayers, and new hymns
for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany

Enrich your celebration of Christ’s coming with this treasury of devotional resources. Go beyond angels, shepherds, and wise men. See Christ and worship Christ in the light of Old Testament prophecy, New Testament fulfillment, and promises of His coming again. Fill your heart, mind, and imagination with all He is. Included are hymn links that provide free recordings and printed music. The book’s sections include: Introducing Jesus Christ; Promises of Christ’s Coming; Christ Has Come!; Epiphany: The Light of the World; Promises of His Coming Again

TO GET THE FREE BOOK DOWNLOAD:
Go to the Free Book Downloads page at KenBible.com.
Click the book title to bring up the book pdf.
Click the download icon (downward arrow) in the upper right-hand corner.

Special Thursday Blog Post

What Do You Want from Your Music?

This is simply a personal testimony.

As a lifelong evangelical with an eye on history, I see nothing new in our current struggles over praise and worship music. As I observe its emotional appeal, I am reminded of much of the music I’ve heard in the church over my 69+ years. It reminds me of the big “anthems” of Sandi Patti, Larnelle Harris, and others. Before that was the “Jesus Music” movement of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Consider southern gospel music. And before that was the traditional gospel hymn, largely popularized by the Moody-Sankey revivals of the 1870’s.

All were highly emotional expressions of song within the evangelical movement. All had roots in popular culture. All were highly controversial in their day, being vehemently criticized by more conservative sectors of the church. And honestly, not without reason. None of our music is perfect. Even our most meaningful music has its limitations and flaws. In the case of these emotional styles, perhaps…just perhaps…all were too exclusively and too uncritically practiced by their proponents. But isn’t that the nature of such new movements? Objective reflection and thoughtful editing usually come later.

But the issue is broader than music. During my brief lifetime, I have observed that with both individuals and institutions, our stronger qualities also tend to be our weaker qualities – or at least our more troublesome ones.

For the evangelical church, one of those strong-but-troublesome qualities is the place of emotion. Read back through church history, and the issue never seems to go away. It just continues to resurface with different names and different faces. During my lifetime, the strained relationship between two theological siblings, the Wesleyans and the charismatics, is just one example.

Our problems with emotion are not a surprise. Emotion is inherent in our marvelous, thrilling relationship with our Magnificent God. But like all stimulations, emotional stimulation easily becomes habit forming. It feels good. We want more. We begin seeking more.

I grew up in a church culture where too often, the quality of our religion seemed to be measured by its emotionalism. A good service was one that stimulated our emotions. A good song was one that stimulated our emotions.

Please understand me: I’m not belittling emotion in religion. But I came to realize that if the transcendent God we preached was real, our religion had to be more than emotion. My religion had to be more than emotion.

Speaking for myself, I have found what I was seeking. I have found a God who is very real, very personal, and marvelously constant, moment-by-moment; One who is both transcendent and immanent, One who has planned a beautiful destiny for His people as well as for each of His children. I live and move and breathe in Him.

He is the One I worship. He is the One I trust. He is the One I seek – through music and through silence, through thought and through action, through the everyday and in profound crises. He is completely real, all-encompassing, and the source of all meaning and satisfaction.

I want music that draws me to Him. I want music that helps me know Him and serve Him and glorify Him, not just through singing but through every breath I take; not just for one hour on Sunday morning, but for all 168 hours of the week. I want music that helps me love God, not just with my mouth and my music, but with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength – and my neighbor as myself. It is good and vital that we tell God how great He is. But I want music that also fosters faith, love, and self-sacrifice, learning, growing, repentance, and holy living. I want music that helps me live like Jesus, worship like Jesus, love like Jesus, and die like Jesus.

Our music is good as far as it goes, but I hunger for more.

Hymn: The Reason We Sing

Ken Bible

Psalm 16

Almighty, all-encompassing God,
my Father,
You are my hiding place,
my only God,
my greatest delight!

Recording
Printed Music 

Hide me, Almighty God!
Fierce storms arise.
Clouds gathering all around
Darken the skies.
You are my hiding place,
My safe, secluded space.
How peace is shining through
Here, Lord, in You!

You are my highest good,
O glorious Lord!
Life’s great inheritance!
Love’s rich reward!
Shallow and passing joys
Shout out their empty noise.
All that is good and true
Flows, Lord, from You.

Bless You, my guard, my guide,
Heaven’s pure light!
You bless and shepherd me
All through the night.
Fullness of love divine,
Pleasures profound are mine,
Joys ever fresh and new
Here, Lord, in You.

 

by Ken Bible, © 2018 LNWhymns.com

Father and Son

A Hymn based on
John, chapters 14 – 17

Recording
Printed Music

In joy and in grieving, in love and in loss
I share in the Father and Son.
Reflecting their glory, enduring the cross,
I walk in the Father and Son.

Refrain:
One with You, Father,
One in Your Son,
Breathing Your Spirit, our union begun,
Rich in Your blessing,
Secure in Your grace,
Glimpsing the heaven that shines in Your face.

In speaking and doing, I’m never alone –
I follow the Father and Son.
When needing a strength far exceeding my own,
I cling to the Father and Son.

Embraced and empowered by all that You are,
O Father and Spirit and Son,
I share in Your fullness, Your mind and Your heart,
O Father and Spirit and Son!

from Prepare Yourself for Worship

Prepare for Easter

Father, as I celebrate this Easter season,
teach me what it means to live as
an Easter person
in this present world.

Everyone here is facing
inescapable death.
Help me live Your resurrection life among them,
glowing with
hope,
purpose, and
joyful anticipation.

Here sin seems inescapable.
Failure is considered inevitable.
Help me live as one set free from sin,
fully forgiven and
fully empowered for triumphant living.

Here, as we face the future,
we are gripped with
helplessness and
despair.
May I walk in the bright confidence of Easter.
Help me live as one whose eternal, glorious life in You
has already begun, and
will never end.

Father, may lost and hopeless people
sense the beautiful reality of Easter
in me.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Alive in You
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Only a Seed

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7, NIV)

We dream of building empires. We like to think of ourselves as becoming strong oaks, or perhaps lush, glorious gardens of accomplishment.

But we lose sight of our smallness. We are only one tiny part of a people that together – and only together – are a holy temple, a fruitful vine.

My accomplishments will not be an empire, an oak, or a garden – only a seed. But God will make that seed grow. In His time it will take root. It will blossom and flower and produce fruit. And in that fruit will be more seeds. Some will fall nearby; others will be carried far away. God’s garden will grow richer and broader, spreading out into all eternity.

My Lord and Savior, deliver me from an exaggerated image of my importance as Your servant, no matter what part I am assigned in Your work. Deliver me from the hope that I will be honored above others. I only want to be one with You and one with Your people.

Thank You, Lord God, for the beauty of Your truth, for the beauty of living and growing in You. You are wonderful!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Touch a Life through Me
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

More

I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 

Now to him who is able to do I measurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV)

Jesus, I am finding You
more than a promise,
more than a hope,
more than a thought.

You are
more than I have let You be,
more than I can imagine You to be,
more than all the dreams
that have cluttered by mind.

You are all the “more”
of my restless desires,
all the “more”
of God’s restless love for me,
all the “more” of eternity,
ever here, ever flowing,
ever full, yet ever growing,
ever satisfying and
ever surprising.

Jesus,
to You be all my love and trust,
all my hungering and hoping,
all my living and rejoicing and aspiring,
look by look, Lord,
more and more.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Beyond Imagination
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics